The Future War t2-3

by S. M. Stirling

  When the soldier and the medic became aware of John standing there, they murmured "excuse me" and moved away.

  Sarah smiled up at him, then closed her eyes and leaned her head against the rock.

  "Thank God you're here," she said quietly.

  "Thank God you're here," he responded. He shook his head.

  "Mom—"

  "Don't start," she cut in. "I'm not in the mood. This could have happened to anybody."

  That was true, he knew. It wasn't bad leadership or foolish bravado that had gotten her into this scrape. She was still one of the best field commanders in the resistance. But she was hurt, and she was his mother.

  Sighing, John dropped cross-legged beside her. Just sitting and looking at her, and waiting for her to open her eyes. For a moment he thought that she actually dropped off to sleep and he felt a bit guilty, as though he'd been unfairly pressuring her.

  Then he steeled his resolve. If she was asleep he'd wait until she woke up, even if it took all night.

  By which time I'll be asleep and she'll decide to wait for me, then she'll fall asleep again. He smiled, and waited. In a few moments she struggled to open her eyes and smiled at him. It made her look years younger.

  "I think I dropped off there. I wasn't sure if I'd dreamed you or not."

  "You did. Drop off, I mean." He reached out and placed his hand on her head, stroking the hair back from her brow. "How bad are you hurt?"

  "Don't know yet," she said. "It'll take a real doctor to tell me that. Hurt enough to really want a painkiller." Sarah looked puzzled. "Did that kid give me one?"

  "I'll find out," he said, and rose.

  He came back in a few minutes with something in his fist. He sat down again, and taking up her canteen, unscrewed the top and poured some water into it. Then he offered her a pill.

  "Codeine," he said.

  "Ah, codeine is our friend," Sarah said, and popped it, taking the cap and swallowing the water. "I feel better just knowing I'll feel better."

  He smiled, but in a worried way. "Mom, I've been thinking."

  "Good," she said. "You make a mother proud. Keep that up and we'll all get through this."

  He grinned. "I've been thinking about you."

  She sighed and signaled him to go on.

  "Mom, I think it's time you died."

  She turned wide eyes on him. "Hello?"

  "Not really," he said quickly, smiling. "Look, Mom, you're badly hurt here. It might be an incapacitating injury, which means your fieldwork days may be through. I think it's time you went home."

  "Home?" she said, as if she'd never heard the word. Sarah pushed herself up a bit, gritting her teeth as she did so. John made to reach for her, but she warned him off with a look.

  "Where exactly is home?" Sarah raised her brows. "Paraguay?

  L.A. perhaps?"

  He pressed his lips together and smiled. "Home, for you, is where Dieter is. And since his injury, Dieter has been in Washington State training people. He could use your help. And I think you'd like to see him again."

  "You know I would," Sarah agreed. "But you also know that there's still a lot to do."

  "I'm not proposing that you retire, Mom. Not that you ever would. I'm saying that maybe it's time you stopped fieldwork."

  "Before I make a fool of myself?"

  "More like before you get killed. I think you're too valuable.

  One of the things you do best is train. Look at me," he said, flinging his arms wide.

  She grinned. "Yeah, the Great Military Leader Dickhead." She nodded sagely. "That's my work."

  "You bet it is. I also need you to run herd on Snog. He and his gang are getting into some very weird tribal stuff. You're the only human being on the planet that scares him enough to rein him in." John paused and chewed his lower lip for a moment before he continued. "I also think that we need a martyr."

  Sarah raised her brows. "Oh, really?"

  "Yup. See, I think that people need to be reminded what they're fighting for. And I think that bringing your story"—he looked sympathetically at his mother—"your struggle, before them will remind them that there is hope."

  She frowned. "Maybe I'm tired, but I still don't see why I have to actually die."

  "Well," he snorted, "you don't actually die. We'll just say you did and give you a new identity."

  "Uh-huh. Did I miss the why part?"

  "Because if you just sort of semiretire, I'm afraid that people will be reminded how long this thing has been going on and how long it might well continue. Which, as you can see, would be a real downer."

  "And my death would be a signal to party. Yeah, sure, I can see that."

  "Mom. Your death would make you a saint." He paused. "A legend."

  She blinked. "Oh." It was what Kyle had called her. The legend. Sarah looked up at John with tears in her eyes. "I see."

  He patted her hand. "Why don't you sleep on it tonight."

  Yawning hugely, she tried to speak. Then repeated, "I don't think I have any choice in that. Codeine's kicking in. G'night."

  She moved her lips in a kiss and sank under the drug.

  John sat and watched her for a long time. The medic came and checked her, nodded positively at John—which was a relief—and went away. The rest of the battle was routine; the only real question was how many casualties they'd take, and how much productive gear they could capture—and how much they could make sure wasn't booby-trapped.

  He thought he'd convinced her. At least he hoped he had. The last thing he wanted was to make her mad. But she needed time to recover from this wound, if she ever did. And he saw no reason why that recuperation shouldn't happen in Dieter's vicinity. And once there she'd be able to see how much she was needed there.

  He thought he'd convinced her about the legend thing, too. At least he hoped so.

  It took time to become a legend and Kyle was already ten years old. John sighed. Even though he thought this move was necessary, he disliked the dishonesty of it. The "first" time, maybe his mother really had died in this cave. But since, thank God, she hadn't… now was the time to remove her from immediate danger.

  His aide came and tapped John's shoulder, waking him from a doze. With a last fond look at Sarah's sleeping face, he rose and followed the soldier to where his people were waiting to make their reports.

  MISSOURI

  The clinic was ill lit, small, and not very clean. But given the supplies they had, the three-nurse staff had managed to save a fair number of lives in the three years Mary Reese had been there. There were patients in three of the five beds, two with the mystery fevers that tended to afflict the prisoners here. One with a nasty injury from having his hand dragged into some machinery.

  Mary was changing the man's bandages and thinking about the days when microsurgery might have saved his hand. The accident had only happened yesterday and so far infection hadn't set in. That, at least, was good. But if the hand didn't heal and the man couldn't work, he was doomed.

  Stretcher bearers rushed in with a man who was badly burned around the head and upper body. He was unconscious and apparently quite heavy.

  "Where do we put him?" one of the men barked.

  Mary gestured to an examining table and took a second look at them. They were unfamiliar and, she noticed for the first time, not wearing the prisoner's uniform of baggy gray cotton shirt and pants. They were dressed for the outdoors, wearing cammies. The stretcher bearers put the patient down on the table, and abandoning the stretcher, scurried away as though afraid of getting caught someplace they weren't supposed to be.

  Mary met the eyes of Tia Nevers, her assistant, a young black woman whose very short hair molded a beautifully shaped skull.

  "What the hell was that all about?" Tia muttered.

  "My thoughts exactly," Mary agreed. She quickly finished with her patient and went over to their sink to wash her hands.

  Then she brought some warm soapy water over to the examining table and began to briskly wash off the m
an's face and head. Tia brought scissors and started clipping off the burned hair, clearing his scalp for treatment.

  "Looks to me like a plasma beam passed pretty close to this boy," Tia said.

  Mary nodded. "It does, doesn't it? Which makes me wonder what he's doing here." The HKs didn't routinely round up the wounded for treatment. They were much more likely to crush them under their treads. Was he resistance? If so, what evil plan was Skynet working on?

  She scrubbed, as gently and as quickly as possible, and the soot came off the man's face unwillingly. At last she'd cleared the better part of his countenance and suddenly she recognized him.

  Shock froze her and she stood with the dripping cloth in her hand, staring.

  Tia looked up at her from where she had been cutting his shirt off and then glanced at the patient. "Holy shit!" she hissed.

  "I know this bastard! He's a goddamned Luddite! His name is Sam." She stood back from the table and looked at Mary.

  "What's he doing here?"

  Mary looked around and leaned toward her friend. "I don't think he is supposed to be here. Those guys took off like a shot once they'd dropped him. At a guess, I'd say Skynet is starting to liquidate its human followers."

  The other woman looked at Sam like he was a half-squashed bug and pulled her lips back from her teeth. "Gooood," she said.

  Tia threw down the scissors and started to walk away.

  "Hold it!" Mary grabbed her arm.

  Tia swept Mary's hand away with a stroke and glared at her.

  "He killed my husband," she said coldly. "No way am I treating him." She met Mary's eyes. "You can't ask me to do that."

  "First of all," Mary said, "he's the first person from outside this place that I've seen in two years. He can tell us what's going on."

  "He's a Luddite, Mary! You can't trust anything those assholes say!"

  "Second, he's badly burned; there's very little we can do but make him comfortable."

  " I'm not givin' that bastard our painkillers. Let him suffer like he's made other people suffer." She glared defiance at her friend.

  "We can't do that," Mary said. She looked at Tia sympathetically.

  Tia rolled her eyes. "Oh, yes we can!" She compressed her lips and moved a step closer to Mary. Looking down, she said softly,

  "That… thing raped me while my dying husband watched." Then she looked up. "I won't lift a finger to help him. Not one finger!"

  Mary grabbed her arm and gave her a shake. "Yes, you will!"

  Tia stared at her, taken aback. "And why is that?" she finally asked.

  "Because you're better than he is. Because you're a healer. And because we are not going to give Skynet that kind of victory over us." This time she took a step closer, her gaze boring into Tia's startled eyes. "Because we have to hang on to every shred of humanity we've got. Because every time we do that, it's a victory over Skynet. I can't keep that thing from killing my body, but I will never let it kill my soul!"

  Tia pulled her head back and looked at her. "Oh," she said.

  She blinked a few times, then added, "Then I guess I'd better finish cuttin' off that shirt."

  "I guess you better." Mary felt as surprised as Tia looked.

  Where did that come from? she wondered. She went back and picked up the cloth, and continued washing away the soot.

  All they had to treat him with was some

  over-the-counter-style antibiotic cream. It was past its use-by date and they didn't have much of it, but it was probably better than the nothing they'd be using otherwise. Mary doubted that he was going to make it.

  Looks like getting sterilized wasn't enough, she thought contemptuously.

  * * *

  Every day Mary left some of her dinner and a short note for Kyle in a different place. The next location was mentioned in the note, which usually said only, "I love you." Once or twice a year she might chance actually talking to him and she tried to get a glimpse of him every week.

  It was hard, but it was safer. They hadn't been in the factory a week before they realized that if anyone showed a partiality for another then that person might have to bear punishment for the transgressor. Since the transgression might well be imaginary Mary told Kyle that she would always love him and would try to help him, but that she was going to keep her .distance. Even at seven, he'd seen enough to understand.

  She walked along; then, so quickly it was hard to see, she left a small bundle on a hidden shelf. Yet, before she could withdraw her hand, a smaller hand caught her wrist. Startled, she looked to the dark slot between machines and saw her son. She smiled and sat down, pretending to remove a stone from her shoe.

  "Are you all right?" she whispered.

  "Yeah. Just wanted to hear your voice."

  She held the shoe up in a way that allowed her to turn in his direction. She could see a smudged face and bright eyes. She grinned in pure pleasure and hid it with a grimace. "Good to see you," she said, trying not to move her lips. "I love you."

  He smiled. "Love you, too, Mom."

  She turned the shoe over and pretended to be prying at something. "Everything all right?"

  "Except for being here, yeah." His face wore a rebellious expression. "I want, I need, to see the sun, Mom. I can't stand this much longer."

  She stopped fiddling with the shoe and looked at him. "Do not panic," she said sternly. "And don't do anything foolish."

  "I think I know a way out," he whispered. "I could find Dad and bring help."

  "You need information about what it's like out there," Mary said, returning to picking at her shoe. "I think I can get it for you, but it might take some time. You have to wait."

  He looked at her for a moment. "I'm not sure I believe you," he finally said.

  Mary half smiled, and looked up at him from under her eyebrows. "Yeah, I've led you astray so many times. How could you possibly trust me?"

  It distressed him, and he kind of wiggled, looking all over the place before his gaze returned to her, whereupon he frowned.

  "They brought Sam into the clinic today," she said.

  "Who?"

  That made her blink. "Sam. The guy who caught us, remember?"

  He nodded slowly, his eyes big. "You're helping him?" His voice indicated total disbelief, as though she'd suggested that she and one of the machines were going to have a baby.

  Mary gave him a very serious look, a hard look. "I'm going to pump him for information," she said. "I think I can get him to tell me the truth. Once we have some information, we'll know how to proceed."

  Kyle looked at her with the eyes of desperation. "Mom," he said, "I need—"

  "I know," she said quickly. "I really do know exactly how you feel. But you've got to give me some time. Meet me beside the stampers in a week. Same time." She looked at him, willing him to agree.

  He got up and began to withdraw. "I'll be there," he said.

  Then he was gone.

  Mary fiddled with her shoe a bit more, then put it on and went on her way.

  * * *

  The next day—morning to Mary, though it could be midnight in the world outside—she glanced around and saw that the hand injury was gone. According to his chart, which she found in the file, he'd been removed during the night shift. Glad I wasn't here

  , she thought. Nothing that happened here was uglier than

  "removals."

  The two fever cases were resting, both of their fevers had broken during the night. Nothing needed there, she thought with satisfaction. She found Sam awake and hyperalert with pain. His heart was hammering at a hundred forty beats a minute and he was shuddering violently, his teeth chattering uncontrollably.

  "Gimme something for the pain!" he demanded through clenched teeth. "Now!"

  Mary checked his chart; he was certainly due for something, overdue in fact. Looks like Sam had another satisfied customer on the staff last night. She nodded. "Okay, looks like you're due."

  "And turn the heat up; it's freezing."

 
She looked at him with pity. "You're cold because you've been badly burned. I'm afraid there's nothing I can do to help you there." She ignored the impatient sound he made and went to get him some codeine. "How did this happen to you?" she asked over her shoulder.

  "Accident."

  She looked over at him. His eyes were closed and he shuddered, but she could see he was trying to contain it. Mary tightened her lips. He was pitiful, but she couldn't let him see that. "Oh, right," she said. "It must have been an accident because no machine would ever deliberately harm a human."

  "Fuck you," he said.

  She stood over him, pill in one hand, glass of water in the other. "You know what, Sam? You're not supposed to be here.

  Your guys rushed you in here and then dropped you like a hot potato. Here, in the prisoners' clinic. Think about that." She leaned toward him. "I don't think they thought your accident was an accident."

  "Fuck you," he snarled.

  "Redundant," she said. "But then, I guess you're not at your best. What's it like out there?"

  "It's paradise." The look in his eyes was pure evil.

  "That must be why the machines thought they could dispose of your services," Mary said lightly. She leaned forward again and stage whispered, "Does it occur to you yet that turning the world over to the machines might not be the best thing for the birds, and the bees, and the bunnies?"

  "I hate you," Sam growled.

  "Gee, and I was gonna ask you to be my valentine. Do you want this?" she asked, holding up the pill. His eyes went from it to her face and he couldn't hide his desperation. It was a look that made her feel sick and triumphant at the same time. "All I've got is pills. Can you lift your head to take it and swallow water?"

  He did so, straining visibly.

  "What is it like out there?" Mary asked, spacing her words.

  She held the pill and the water ready.

  After a second he dropped his head down and closed his eyes.

  "You bitch," he muttered, panting slightly.

  "Look," she said firmly. "Just answer me. What's the difference? It's not like it's going to help me; I just want to know.